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What is new in Tekla PowerFab?

Published Date

Tekla PowerFab will get exciting new developments this fall*. These include major improvements in how drawings can be managed and distributed. In addition, more flexibility has been added to the areas of estimating and purchasing. 

*Tekla EPM version 2020i is released on September 16th, however, the Tekla EPM 2020i Beta version is currently available for all customers on support.

We asked Ryan Vander Plaats, the product manager for MIS with Trimble to give us a little insight into these developments.

What is the most important new feature in this release, if you must name one?

- I would focus on the most specific, significant development, which is in the area of drawings. The project managers are now able to import and manage all types of drawings in a more flexible way. Most importantly, they have the option to organize and distribute any type of drawings to the shop floor and site. This allows our users' ultimate flexibility and makes paperless shop operations very easy to set up and intuitive to use.

Who benefits most from this improvement?
- The whole company and especially Project Managers get the biggest benefits. But also the consumers of this information - the Tekla EPM Go mobile tool users on the shop floor or at the site - also benefit from more clarity in finding the information they need. 

How does this show to users?
- In this release, we added an option to open and close jobs, so you don’t get cluttered by old jobs that you don’t need to access anymore. 
- Also the import function, the TME plugin, has been updated: We added intelligence that can automatically organize different types of drawings in their own folders, helping Project Managers in their daily work.
- This means they now can distribute relevant drawing types - for active jobs only - to different user groups via Tekla EPM Go. For example, the guys on the shop floor would need access to part and assembly drawings whereas the erection crew at the site would need mostly assembly-level drawings and general arrangement drawings. 

You mentioned the mobile tool used in the shop and at the site - how has Tekla EPM Go evolved? 
- We constantly think of ways to make it even easier and more intuitive to use, yet powerful to allow our users to operate efficiently. Offering browser-based access to selected Tekla EPM data, Tekla EPM Go benefits from the development done to the Tekla EPM side. 

- As said, the main thing that we improved this time is the Drawings area. Using Tekla EPM settings, you can now control what drawings are included on the Tekla EPM Go screen. And you can do this on a user group level, for instance, site workers will get different fields than the shopfloor workers, or you can even customize the fields at a single user level. 

What does more flexibility to Estimating and Purchasing mean?
- We want you to be able to fully customize your estimating defaults, so we added more options for defining cleaning and painting systems in Estimating. In Purchasing, some customers had requested that more details can be added into purchase orders by line item.

Naturally, this is not all - we also released many smaller usability improvements in this version.

How to learn more?
For a comprehensive overview of the improvements in the Tekla EPM 2020i and Tekla EPM Go 2020i, please watch our new version webinar recording.

Learn more about Tekla PoweFab software for steel fabricators

Disclaimer:  This article talks about the product development items which are not yet introduced, please remember: The information presented regarding future product features and functionalities is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon in making a purchasing decision. Trimble is under no obligation to deliver any future products, features, or functions within any specified time frame. Release dates and content are subject to change at Trimble’s sole discretion.